Category: Opinion

Columnist criticizes says tax-limitation opponent and UW-Madison economist Andrew Reschovsky’s stand against the so-called Taxpayer Protection Amendment.

Mequon attorney Rick Esenberg says the proposed amendemtn will provide needed spending controls.

Another week, another study putting a price on tax limits. The verdict: $1.9 billion of more power to you.

The latest numbers come from the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the gold standard of Wisconsin government data. The bureau reported this week that had the Taxpayer Protection Amendment been at work for the past 20 years, the state would have collected $1.9 billion less in taxes in 2003-’04 – a 14% cut. Had the amendment been in place for 10 years, the state’s take would have been 3.6% less in 2003-’04.

There was a more dramatic assessment last month when Andrew Reschovsky, an economist and public policy analyst at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that state revenue would have been a third less in 2003 had the amendment’s revenue limits been running since the mid-1980s.

The University of Wisconsin System has had its hands full trying to manage the scandals and bad news that have plagued Bascom Hill during the past year.

The report issued by the state Legislative Audit Bureau yesterday detailing felons employed by the University of Wisconsin System hits home as troubling for both the criminal information it finally shares with the public and that which it conspicuously leaves absent.

State employees are easy targets for mockery, but we must remember their feelings because they’re no different from us. Except that they, unlike us, are allowed to alienate colleagues, harass women and misspend money without getting fired.

I used to think “parole officer” was the best job in the world, after I learned of a Shawano County worker who got caught surfing Internet pornography at work and ended up getting a raise. Not to mention back pay for work he didn’t do during the year he spent protesting his firing.

The University of Wisconsin Board of Regents recently voted to raise the salary ranges of certain UW senior executive positions. The regents made the move with an eye squarely on the higher salaries given for similar positions at many peer institutions, fearing the compensation gap would hinder UW�s competitiveness in attracting top-notch administrators to Wisconsin.

A few weeks back I asked here whether the Republicans in the state Legislature knew that the University of Wisconsin-Madison is getting high marks from national publications for helping new businesses get started.

There are some ideologues in the Legislature, after all, who assume that the UW-Madison is nothing more than a breeding ground for bed-wetting liberals, long-haired malcontents, anti-Christians or whatever else is in their craw at any given moment. So if they found the UW to actually be pro-business, that surely would touch their good, Republican hearts.

Colorado squeezed its state finances into a straitjacket called the taxpayer bill of rights in 1992. TABOR, a constitutional amendment limiting the growth in public revenue, worked even better than advertised. Government shrunk drastically.

There were side effects, however – fiscal and political. First, services – health care, roads and bridges, schools and universities – worsened. Next, for the first time in 30 years, the Republican Legislature turned Democratic.

Well, here we go again. The taxpayers bill of rights, or some form of it, is back on the table in the Wisconsin Legislature.

While I have serious problems with such legislation in general and am sure that it will have negative consequences for both taxpayers and state and local government, I am most frustrated with the narrow scope of the discussion surrounding the debate.

Rep. Jeff Wood argues for the need for constitutional revenue limits. Quoted is Andrew Reschovsky, professor of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a critic of TABOR.